Various tools have been designed in the past to meet the particular needs in solv an assembly or disassembly problem. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,068,374 to J. R. Coler discloses a manual tool having a double-handle and wedge-clamping arrangement for effecting either removal or installation of a housing from a pair of electric contact members. The tool is generally made up b of a forwardly disposed wedge for initially separating a pair of contact members of a circuit board and the like. A pair of pivotally and resiliently mounted clamping elements are provided such that the wedge is interposed therebetween. One handle supports the wedge and the pair of clamping elements while the other handle is pivotally mounted and has a cam-shaped end for controlling the opening and closing of the clamping elements. When the tool is placed over a contact member housing, the contact members are separated by the wedge and the other handle is actuated to grip the housing for removal in an axial direction without causing abrasive injury to the contact member surfaces. Conversely, the tool will assemble a housing to a pair of contact members, since the tool wedge will separate the pair of contact members prior to the housing being fully assembled to the contact members. U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,736 to R. F. Fieburg et al. concerns a manual tool for selectively inserting or removing electric leads from a multi-lead connector plug. The tool is generally made of a hand-grippable tool body. The body is provided with a finger-actuatable spring-biased slider. The outer end of the slider includes a movable finger-like jaw, the transverse section of which is in the shape of a semicircle. An opposed jaw also of semicircle configuration is affixed to the tool body. An electric-insulated lead is gripped between the jaws for the purpose of being either connected or disassembled from any one of a series of pin connection openings of an elastomeric plug. By virtue of the elongated extent of the movable jaw together with maneuvering of the tool in close or immediate proximity to the plug, one or more leads is readily installed in or removed from its associated pin connection opening of the series thereof that are provided in the plug.
Hand-service tools for effecting assembly and disassembly of components have a wide variety of shape, size and use. Despite this multitude of tools as evidenced by the aforediscussed prior art, advancing technology, particularly in the electric/electronic industry, create new problems that render prior servicing tools ineffective. Thus, these problems create opportunities for innovative solutions. In the absence of an existing tool meeting a particular problem of advanced technology, the use of advanced technology is limited. In the area of electric terminal assemblies for interfacing and interconnecting various components of one or more networks, a series of connections of different sizes are frequently required and because of the limited space available, the series of different sized connections are normally arranged in close-clustered relationship. Further, because of the design requirements of the connections requiring a positive snap-lock connection in order to maintain electric connection under all conditions of terminal use, the clustered arrangement of the series of connectors for the plurality of interconnected different-size cables renders assembly or disassembly of these connectors by currently available tools either an impossible situation or an impractical approach. Further, none of the prior art tools recognized the importance of an elongated unitized tool for remote axial and/or rotatable control and selective access into a clustered arrangement of a series of interconnected different-size cables at an electric terminal so as to permit either connection or disconnection of the tightly connected socket-plug connections of the interconnected cables. In other words, by reason of electric/electronic networks being provided with increasing complex multiple and different-sized cable terminal interconnections and having more difficult access or servicing requirements, an improved somewhat universal elongated and remotely operated unitized tool is needed in being able to service a variety of different-size cable interconnections.
Accordingly, none of the aforediscussed prior art, whether taken alone or in any combination, remotely suggest an improved elongated, manually operable and unitized tool of lightweight construction for remote access and selective axial and/or rotation control for effecting connection/disconnection of any one of a plurality of different-size socket/plug connections in a clustered arrangement of a series of interconnected cables of an electric terminal. The tool is generally made up of opposed and fixed jaws of special shape with a slot therebetween so as to accommodate and grip a wide range of socket end connections of different diametrical sizes of a series of interconnected cables to be serviced for one reason or another. A combined handle and sleeve arrangement is affixed at one end to the opposed jaws and remotely supports and controls the jaws so that they can be maneuvered into and out of engagement with a socket end being serviced. A second handle is rotatably mounted within the first handle and is connected by shaft means to a rotatable cam for causing gripping of an engaged socket end between the cam and opposed jaws for the purpose of effecting either assembly or disassembly of the socket end of one cable from its associated plug end of an interconnected cable at an electric terminal.